I recently got diagnosed with Hep C. My viral load on my chart says "HCV RNA PCR is 47,700 IU/ML or 4.7 LogIU/ML" My liver biopsy came back Knodell HAI score 6, stage 1 of 4 for fibrosis. Geneotype 2B. Chronic Hep, mild activity grade 2 of 4. My question is I'm was trying to get pregnant before I found out I was hep c positive. My gastro doctor told me I have nothing to worry about right now as far as doing the treatment and as far as passing this on to my child it would be extremely low chance. He told me to wait til after I have my children and when I had 6 months to do the treatment, do it. I want to know if you agree. And is my viral load low or high?? Thank you so much.

Response from Dr. McGovern

I think whether you wait or not is up to you.

Some women find it hard to deal with any possibility of passing on an infection to their baby, even at low risk. Your risk is about 5 percent.

You have the best possible infection - a low viral load with one of the easist genotypes to treat. In matter of fact there has been some recent data to suggest that genotype 2 can be treated with as little as 4 months of treatment.

If you are anxious, you may consider 4 months of combination therapy. I think your chances of doing well are greater than 90 percent. Then I would wait about 3 to 6 months after completion of treatment before getting pregnant.

It is critically important NOT to become pregnant on ribavirin since it can cause birth defects.

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